A piggyback mortgage -- where the loan combines a standard first mortgage with a home-equity loan or line of credit to avoid private mortgage insurance or the higher interest rates on jumbo loans (10%).

While it's not all doom and gloom, there are still a number of people with bad credit stuck in expensive subprime or risky exotic and piggyback mortgages, which could result in dramatically rising payments at best and foreclosure at worst," Wachter said.

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